


Creature Comforts

by gardnerhill



Series: A Fiend in Feline Form [7]
Category: Basil of Baker Street - All Media Types, The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Genre: Anal Sex, Animals, Challenge Response, M/M, Outdoor Sex, Prompt Fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-10
Updated: 2017-03-10
Packaged: 2018-10-02 10:20:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10215752
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gardnerhill/pseuds/gardnerhill
Summary: Basil of Baker Street is NOT a country mouse.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Created for the LJ comm Come At Once and the 2017 challenge prompt, "The Great Outdoors."

In a tumultuous year I have yet seen equaled, my remarkable friend Basil of Baker Street took on an absolute fiend of a feline criminal chief named Macavity. This particular cat was so cunning in his crimes and possessed such a gift for eluding capture and arrest that he was also known as The Mystery Cat and The Hidden Paw. The clever brute’s assault on us was inexorable. (Even I found myself the target of one of his hired assassins, the notorious mouser Colonel Mabel – whose defeat earned me a bobbed tail and a claw-scarred back, a thousand guineas from Her Rodential Majesty, and the nickname Catkiller – but that is a story for another time.) So far-reaching was this crime boss’ attack that our snug rooms below 221b Baker Street were firebombed and we had to flee to the Continent one scamper ahead of his gang. Soon Basil and I found ourselves in Switzerland awaiting the tightening of the snare by Inspector Gervaise and the police.  The authorities did indeed take in Macavity’s gang – but Macavity himself fled their clutches.

 

Upon receiving the telegram from Gervaise Basil and I left our snug Swiss hostelry and fled into the mountains, still deep in snow though it was early May. Basil had bitterly deduced that with his criminal empire gone the Hidden Paw now had only one focus for all his cruelty and genius – revenge upon us – and would soon track us down. My friend was determined to pick his battleground where the beast would be away from his beloved comforts of city life as a cosseted crime boss.

 

Alas, Macavity was not the only Londoner so affected. I was born in the countryside and knew its ways, happy though I was to leave them behind for medical school and the Army. But Basil was pupped and bred in the heart of the metropolis – the very model of a city mouse. Our flight and subsequent exile into the wild wore upon him more deeply than I.

 

It is a curious thing that some folk who can face terrifying hazards with a cool smile fall to pieces at a broken bootlace. Such was Basil no longer in Baker Street. My poor friend tried to make a brave face over the raw nuts and wild mushrooms that became our fare, but I could hear the rumble of his stomach (I too tried hard not to think of the rich succulent cheeses we’d left behind at our cosy hostelry). The abandoned wild-rodent holes lined with dry grass where we bivouacked for the night provided little rest; I heard and felt him toss and turn, grumbling when he wasn’t sneezing at the chaff, and his puffy eyes bespoke both irritation and sleeplessness, neither of which improved his temper. He still had his pipe but our tobacco was long gone, and that made him fret more.

 

On the fourth day of this flight, as we hiked higher into the cold wilderness on the snow-shoes we’d fashioned from twigs, I lost my balance (no doubt due to my truncated tail) and my footing, and fell against a snow-laden shrub, which obligingly doused both of us in the cold wet slush. For Basil that was the last hair plucked from his tail. He popped out of the snow-mound in as fine a rage as I have ever seen him, and for the next ten minutes he regaled me with a long list of my shortcomings as a companion at the top of his lungs (even that noise muffled by the snow all around us).

 

Fortunately I was no longer the bewildered ex-Army doctor who’d been carried along on our first case together, when we’d been strangers to each other. We were friends now, and business partners, and mates. I knew this mouse like the back of my paw and understood what had truly angered him. I therefore stood unflinching and let Basil’s temper blow around me and past me without taking any of it to heart, either to turn away in sorrow and self-recrimination or to respond with a right cross. 

 

As I knew it would, the firestorm of Basil’s anger burnt out and was soon gone, his heavy breathing puffing out in clouds in the cold air (with just a slight wheeze from his hay fever). He looked at me in stricken remorse – and he was just beginning to shiver from the wetting from the slushy snow.

 

Nature does not care about one’s state of mind, and it is that practicality that I used to bandage the wound. All I said was a brisk, “Our clothes are wet through and we need to build a fire at once. Go gather dry sticks and twigs, preferably those still on their trees and shrubs.” My Army bearing rang out in the order, and Basil obeyed instantly, turning to head to a drier patch of the copse.

 

I located a rocky overhang with a flat stretch of granite before it upon which we could build the fire. I explored the overhang quickly to find no threat to us, and swept the edge and sides clear of snow before stowing our gear in the small cave and helping Basil gather wood. I had matches in my backpack; I thought of the other lifesaving necessities I carried, and determined that it was time I used a few more of them.

 

Within minutes we had a decent fire snapping. Our wet clothes were strung on twigs to dry on the other side of the overhang, which provided a windbreak for two bedraggled naked mice huddled as close as was possible to the flames without singeing our fur. Best of all, Basil had found and dragged back a good thick chunk of dry hardwood as big as he was, which soon provided a steady hot glow that would last longer than the quick flicker of heat provided by small sticks; that was better than an apology, and his shamefaced smile said that he knew it too.

 

We groomed each other back into a semblance of civilisation as the steady eddying heat warmed and dried us, and even began to radiate back a little from the stones of our shelter. The air was still cold, but between the overhang and the clothes barrier we had as near to an enclosed room as we’d managed since taking to our heels. I felt some of the tension leave Basil’s back as I worked, and knew that my decision was the right one to make. For I have been in combat, and I know how vital luxuries are for survival.

 

So I leaned forward where I worked on his spine, and kissed the back of his ear where I knew he was sensitive.

 

Basil tensed up again, and his head turned around so he could face me. “Dawson? Here? Now?” Disbelief in his expression.

 

My own was sober. “Absolutely here. Absolutely now. We both need a distraction, as well as the sleep inducement – and this place is not stuffed full of dry grass,” with a wry look around our stone bivouac and dirt floor, “so you will not spend half the night sneezing. This is what we’re surviving for – our home, our lives, our love.” I touched his nose with one finger-tip. “And _you_ need to apologise for that outburst.”

 

Basil grinned back at me in relief; his eyes were warmer than the smile. “I do, my dear mouse.” His brows lowered and he looked around at our sparse surroundings. “Is there anything here that can possibly serve as…?” He looked back at me and burst out laughing – the first time he’d done so in a very long time.

 

I beamed at the lovely sound, still holding up the little tin of salve I had triumphantly produced from my knapsack. Then I leaned forward once more for a proper kiss. This time my irascible, infuriating, beloved mate met me halfway.

 

(Her Majesty and most of mousedom no doubt prefer the more usual form of mating which produces royal heirs and loyal subjects, but unlike our human counterparts we understand that this form of unity, though unusual, is also an expression of nature’s inexorable call and therefore is equally as blessed by Providence. We can only feel pity for those who share our preferences and must needs live this part of their lives in secrecy.)

 

The fire had done a decent job of warming the stones of our little cave and we took advantage of that scrap of comfort. We were already bare to each other and resumed our grooming, for far less utilitarian purpose. I shivered, as I always did, at the feel of Basil’s tongue along the three hairless claw-scars on my back, and when he reached the join where my thigh joined hip I emitted a squeal, which made him laugh again in a lower register.

 

We rolled in the dirt as if fighting. Kisses became licks and caresses. The hard ground and cold air were forgotten for a time as we reveled in softly-furred flesh and warm muscles flexing beneath. We coaxed out each other’s erections with more nuzzles and licks.  

 

I finally crouched before Basil with my tail swung out of the way for his egress, quivering with anticipation, and squealed again at the feel of his tongue against my anus. Then the glorious hot weight of him on my back, and his tight embrace of my hindquarters, and the full length of him inside me, and his own high-pitched cry of passion. We shuddered, locked together, and in that timeless ecstasy all our woes – danger, cold, scant fare – were gone.

 

Basil fell beside me, still shaking, and I gathered him into an embrace until our breathing could steady once again. The hard cold ground and chill air reasserted themselves all too quickly, and we clung for warmth as well as comfort.

 

“I needed that, dear fellow,” Basil murmured, and nestled closer to my larger body (he does like the extra warmth I throw off).

 

“You did indeed, my lovely pup.” I caressed the scarred ear that had once nearly been bitten off by a hungry gull. “So did I. But we are safe here for now.”

 

The smoldering log continued to send out heat to our niche and the stones over us; it was comfort enough to send us into an untroubled, badly-needed sleep.

 

I smiled just a little as I held my mate close, and as I sank deep into sleep’s embrace I thought of another badly-needed luxury that lurked in a bag in the bottom of my knapsack, that would come in handy the next time we needed a respite from our exile.

 

_Tea leaves._


End file.
